BOVET introduces the Récital 28 “Prowess 1”, a world-premiere timepiece that solves the modern timekeeping challenge posed by Daylight Saving Time (DST). Unlike traditional world time watches, the Récital 28 debuts a remarkably intricate and innovative roller system, allowing world travellers to adjust the timepiece to any of the 24 global time zones, including UTC, American Summertime, Europe and America Summertime, and European Wintertime. In addition to this unique feature, the timepiece boasts an expanded flying tourbillon, a perpetual calendar with roller-based indications, and an impressive 10-day power reserve from a single barrel.

The House of BOVET has a long and distinguished history in multiple time zone timepieces, including dual time, three-time zone, and world time watches.

The Récital 28 Prowess 1 is the result of over five years of development, featuring meticulous hand-finishing, hand-engraved bridges, and a limited production of only eight timepieces per year in 18K Red Gold, 950 Platinum, and Grade 5 Titanium. This timepiece represents a significant leap in solving terrestrial timekeeping problems, ensuring accuracy in global timekeeping.

Key Highlights

• The first timepiece of its kind in the history of watchmaking
• Combining adjustable world time on rollers, expanded flying tourbillon, unique perpetual calendar indications
• Incredibly complex, yet simple to understand and use
• Severely limited production (max 8 per year)
• Completely hand-finished and hand-engraved manufacture movement
• 5 years in development
• The Récital 28 Prowess 1 is a world-first breakthrough that advances the art of high watchmaking

Throughout watchmaking history, breakthroughs have been made to solve specific problems. For example, the tourbillon was invented to counter the effects of gravity on precision when a pocket timepiece stays in one position (on a table, in a pocket, etc.).

Once world travel became increasingly popular, dual time and world time watches were developed so travellers could know what time it was in different parts of the world.

Now, with the Récital 28 “Prowess 1,” BOVET addresses a uniquely modern timekeeping issue and solves it innovatively and elegantly.

The Problem

Ever since Daylight Saving Time (DST) was introduced, world time watches have not been able to adapt to the vagaries of when DST starts and ends in different countries and which countries do not change (only about 70 countries use some form of DST).

The Solution

The Récital 28 Prowess 1 from BOVET, thanks to an ingenious roller system, can be adjusted to any one of the 24 time zones, including:

• UTC – Coordinated Universal Time
• AST – American Summer Time
• EAS – Europe and America Summer Time
• EWT – European Winter Time

In addition to this remarkable way of managing time zone differentiation around the world, this timepiece also features an expanded flying tourbillon, a perpetual calendar with indications using rollers and a disk, and 10 days of power reserve from a single barrel.

No other timepiece in the world does all of this mechanically, and every component is hand-finished with the bridges of the movement hand-decorated and hand-engraved.

A Brief History of Timekeeping

Mankind has been trying to master timekeeping since the beginning, starting with sundials, water clocks, incense clocks, and more.

Flash forward to the 1800s, when BOVET was first founded. Then, the world was in chaos regarding timekeeping. Cities, towns, and villages all operated on “local solar time,” independent of any other city. Noon on the clock was when the sun hit its zenith wherever you were – but that moment changed with your longitude. So, when it was noon in New York City, it was 12:12 pm in Boston, Massachusetts; 11:30 am in Cleveland, Ohio; and 11:14 am in Indianapolis, Indiana. In a metropolis like New York, local time could vary as much as a minute or more between the east and west sides of the city. Sun time even differed by about 30 seconds between the two ends of the San Francisco–Oakland Bridge.

As you can imagine, as travel sped up thanks to the railroads, matching up the times of the trains was a logistical nightmare.

Thanks to the railroads, standard time was introduced and used throughout the railway system, and in 1884, the system of 24 time zones was adopted and used worldwide, based on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, UK.

The US government officially adopted standard time on 19 March 1918, though it had been used throughout the country for many years. Within a decade, most of the world was keeping time with this system. In 1972, the majority of the world adopted Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and now official time zones are indicated by +/- UTC, rather than by GMT.